How Small Italian Wineries Really Make Money (And Why Buying Direct Helps)

Picture one of those small Italian wineries from the postcards. Golden hillside, stone cellar, a grandfather squinting at the sky like he’s negotiating with it. Lovely, right?

Now picture the part nobody photographs: a laptop, a tax form and a family trying to work out who is going to buy all those bottles. Small Italian wineries make beautiful wine, but making it is only half the job. Selling it is the other half, and a new Italian study just showed how they really do that.

I went through it so you don’t have to, and one finding made me sit up: the restaurants small producers rely on are shakier than you’d think. Here’s the plain-English version.

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Quick Facts

• The study was presented on 21 October 2026 by Nomisma Wine Monitor and FIVI, the Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers
• It covers FIVI members only, so it describes independent growers, not every winery in Italy
• More than 9 in 10 sell directly at the cellar, and it brings in about 20% of their revenue
• Restaurants and hotels bring in about 47% of revenue for the 73% of members who use them
• Wine tourism brings in about 14% for those who offer it

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The Study in One Table

If you only have a minute, here are the main numbers:

What the study looked at	The finding
Wineries selling at the cellar	More than 9 in 10, bringing in about 20% of revenue
Wineries selling to restaurants and hotels	73%, bringing in about 47% of revenue for those who use them
Revenue from wine tourism	About 14% for the wineries that offer it
Wineries earning under €500,000 a year	80%
Average vineyard size	About 10.5 hectares
Wineries that already export	77%, with another 18% planning to

How Small Italian Wineries Make Money: Three Doors

Think of a winery as having three doors where customers walk in.

Door one is the cellar itself. Over 9 in 10 of these wineries sell straight to visitors, and it brings in about a fifth of their income on average. Almost half of them said it grew over the past three years, and 30% said it held steady.

Door two is restaurants and hotels. This is the big one, at nearly half the revenue for the wineries that use it.

Door three is wine tourism, meaning tastings, tours and cellar visits, which adds about 14% for the wineries that offer it.

A word of caution before anyone adds those up. They’re averages for different groups of wineries, so they won’t make 100%. But look at door one again. Selling over their own counter is no longer a side hustle.

The Surprise: Restaurants Are Wobbling

Here’s the “oh really”. Restaurants are the biggest door, so you’d expect everything to be fine there. But when the wineries were asked how that income had changed over the past two or three years, about a third said it grew, about a third said it stayed the same, and a bit more than a third said it fell. (Those are rounded, which is why they add up to 101%.)

Imagine a lovely dinner party where a few guests have quietly stopped replying to the invitation. Nobody has said they dislike you. The table is just a little emptier than last year.

The wines themselves seem fine. Here’s what restaurant and wine-shop owners told the researchers:

• Sales of these wines have held steady, while for wine in general far more of them said sales were falling than rising
• 9 in 10 said these wines really are what the producers say they are
• 53% plan to keep them on their lists, and 36% plan to expand them

So the problem isn’t the wine. It’s depending too much on one door.

The Good News: Wine Tourism Is Growing

Door three is the cheerful one. Among the wineries that offer wine tourism, 56% said their income from it went up over the past two or three years, and only 14% said it went down. That’s a net balance of 42 points in the right direction.

It isn’t big money for everyone yet. For nearly half of the members, wine tourism is still under 10% of revenue. But more than a quarter of them already welcome over 500 visitors a year, which for a small family winery is a lot of people to pour for. It suggests that more people want to visit, taste and buy on the spot, which is exactly what my guide to buying wine directly from Italian wineries is for.

Why the Cellar Door Matters More Than the Percentage

When a bottle goes through a distributor to a restaurant, the winery usually never finds out who drank it. Did they love it? Would they buy six more? No idea.

When someone buys at the cellar, the winemaker can explain the wine, answer questions and, with permission, stay in touch. That’s the difference between selling a bottle and keeping a customer. The producers in the study say the same thing: selling directly lets them know who’s buying and keep a bigger share of the value of their wine.

It isn’t free money, of course. Staff, payment systems, packaging and welcoming visitors all cost something. But I’d take one customer who comes back for ten years over a thousand strangers who never return, and the cellar counter is where those customers are made.

Who These Wineries Are

The typical FIVI winery isn’t a corporation. Around 80% earn under €500,000 a year, and the average vineyard is about 10.5 hectares. 85% of their vineyard area is on hills or mountains, and 78% of the wineries use native grape varieties.

These are the producers who can’t compete on volume and shouldn’t try to compete on price. They need customers to understand why a little-known local grape in a steep vineyard costs what it costs. If you’ve read my list of lesser-known Italian grapes, you’ll know that story needs telling bottle by bottle.

Going Abroad Is Harder Than It Looks

Plenty of them are trying. 77% of the wineries already export, and another 18% plan to. But 78% of the exporters earn under €100,000 a year from foreign sales, so for most it’s still a small slice of the business.

Which brings us to the problem at home. Here’s a scene you might know: you visit a small winery on holiday, buy six bottles, finish them by Christmas and want more. Easy, you’d think. Order online.

Except sending wine to a private customer in another EU country means excise duties, tax procedures and paperwork that a family winery may not have the staff for. Somehow a bottle crosses a border more easily in a suitcase than in a legal parcel.

That’s why FIVI’s president, Rita Babini, is asking for a simpler European system, a “One Stop Shop” for the tax side. The federation hopes the European Commission will propose legislation in 2027. For now that’s a hope, not a rule. It’s a fair question though: what’s the point of winning someone over on holiday if buying the same wine at home is a headache? If you’re planning a trip and want to know how to handle it, I wrote a step-by-step guide: How to Buy Wine Directly From Italian Wineries.

What to Do With All This

Nothing complicated:

• Buy a few bottles when you visit a cellar, and join the mailing list if there is one
• Ask restaurants for small-producer bottles by name, because wine lists respond to questions
• Check the producer’s own website before assuming a bottle only exists in Italy
• Remember that small doesn’t guarantee good, so let the wine earn its place on your table

The how-to, from finding a winery to booking a visit to getting the bottles home, is in my guide to buying wine directly from Italian wineries. If you want somewhere to start, my Best Italian Wines Under €20 list is a good one, and How to Choose Italian Wine in a Supermarket helps when you can’t visit the producer.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do small Italian wineries make money? Mainly through three channels: selling at the cellar, selling to restaurants and hotels, and wine tourism. Among FIVI members, restaurants and hotels bring in the most, about 47% of revenue for those who use them.

How much do small Italian wineries earn from direct sales? For FIVI wineries that sell at the cellar, about 20% of revenue on average, according to the 2026 Nomisma study.

What is FIVI? The Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers, an association of small independent wine producers.

Is wine tourism growing for small wineries? Among the wineries that offer it, 56% reported higher income from it over the past two or three years, and 14% reported lower.

Is it hard to ship wine from Italy to other EU countries? It can be. Excise duties and tax procedures are complex for small producers. FIVI is asking for a simpler system, but nothing has been adopted yet.

Does buying direct really help a small winery? It gives them a closer customer relationship and a larger share of the value of their wine, although selling directly also has costs.

Is small-producer wine always better? No. Small and family-owned don’t guarantee quality, and every bottle still has to earn its place.

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One Last Thing

“Support small producers” sounds like a slogan until you see what’s behind it. About a fifth of the income at the cellar door, nearly half from restaurants that are wobbling, and a tax maze between a happy holiday customer and a second order.

So the simplest thing we can do is also the most useful: ask for the small producer by name. Do you buy direct from wineries, or do you stick to the shop? I’d like to know what works for you.

— Kelly 🍷

#ItalianWine #SmallProducers #FIVI #WineBusiness

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Continue Reading

• How to Buy Wine Directly From Italian Wineries
• Lesser-Known Italian Grapes
• Best Italian Wines Under €20
• How to Choose Italian Wine in a Supermarket

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Sources

• Nomisma Wine Monitor: Study on the positioning of independent winegrowers (FIVI)
• I Grandi Vini: Vignaioli indipendenti, vendita diretta ed enoturismo sostengono il fatturato
• Tasting Life: Vignaioli indipendenti, vendita diretta ed enoturismo sostengono le cantine
• WineNews: Rooted in the territories that they control, Fivi winegrowers look to global markets to grow